Domestic Violence in the Lifespan

Domestic Violence in the Lifespan

Authors: Neha Datta and Sargun Lalia,
Department of Psychology, Jesus and Mary College

Aim: This paper explores the various dimensions of domestic violence towards women across various life stages.

Abstract: The present paper explores the dimensions and transformation of domestic violence faced by a female as she progresses through her different life stages. Insights have been taken from Malavika Karlekar’s discussion of domestic violence. This paper explores the various dimensions of the “ever-present fact” of violence. The life-cycle approach is used to elucidate the layers of violence as manifested across the stages of life of a female and the many forms it takes, both overt and covert, and physical and non-physical (psychological, social etc.). This approach sheds light on the numerous layers of violence which unfold on a female first as a girl child, then in her conjugal home and then in her old age-each phase influencing the feminine identity formation.

Before a discussion of domestic violence, it is imperative to begin with expanding upon violence as a vast and encompassing construct. Malavika Karlekar describes violence as “an act of aggression usually in interpersonal interaction or relations” and may also be aggression of an individual towards oneself (especially women). Litke (1992) wrote that when a person is vulnerable to violence, individuals have weak notions of “what is one’s body and what is done to one’s body”. Another dimension of violence is set against the context of power relations and is used as a tool “to assert one’s will over another, to prove or to feel a sense of power”. Karlekar opines that this construction of violence resonates with the hierarchical and patriarchal society in India and the use of violence acts as the mechanism to maintain the power imbalance between men and women in the hierarchy. The main unit of this imbalance is the family and its operational unit, the household where oppression and deprivation of people, both physically and mentally, are an inherent part of the structures of acquiescence. A distinction is drawn between the family and the household wherein the former are “kinship groups that need not be localized” and the latter are “task-oriented residence units” although they often overlap in the Indian society.

Due to the central role of the family in maintaining the inequality in the society, the author focuses her paper on domestic violence. She cites a finding of the World Development Report (1993) which pointed out that globally rape and domestic violence account for about 5% of the total disease burden, which covers both physical and non-physical ailments, among women aged 15-44, and these figures themselves may represent only a fraction of the actual value since majority cases across the world go unreported.

Karlekar talks of domestic violence in environs which have usually chosen to stay silent on the matter due to the primacy and privacy of the family as a social unit. Patricia Uberoi says that this silence comes from a hesitance in subjecting the family and its intimate relationships to scrutiny. Consequently, the majority of data which is available is due to the activities of NGOs and the police.

The first stage of violence comes in the natal home-sometimes even before the birth of the girl child. The author begins by talking about female foeticide and infanticide. The misuse of medical tests for female foeticide and the incidence of infanticide in parts of the country where it previously did not exist have been on a rise. The greater incidence of female foeticide also fuels a debate about abortion itself in a woman’s right to control her own body versus the right of a girl child to be born. However, it is essential to note that abortions intended as foeticide are different from gender neutral abortions. A case study carried out in a hospital in a city in western India from June 1976 to June 1977 reveals that of the 700 women who sought pre-natal sex determination, 250 were carrying male foetuses and 450 were carrying female foetuses. All male foetuses were kept to term but 430 of the 450 female foetuses were aborted (Ramanamma and Bambawale, 1980). Female infanticide has is an even greater pernicious manifestation of the discrimination against the girl child and it has started to occur in regions where it was earlier unknown. There seems to be an unspoken legitimisation of infanticide in communities where the poor fear dowry and the rich fear a division of property. Female foeticide and infanticide are a direct consequence of the toxic belief of girls as “paraya dhan” and as a burden to the natal family which comes from the ideas of honour, which are directly dependent on a girl’s purity and sexual protection, dowry and fragmentation of property. Karlekar notes that poverty, alcoholism among men, ignorance of family planning and the cost of dowry may be possible causes of these practices along with negative attitudes towards girls and even the birth order of the female child.

Child abuse within the home, especially against the girl child, is another dimension of violence. This abuse includes sexual aggressions, beating and labour. A study by NGO MARG shows that nearly all children are victims of substantial abuse of a physical, psychological and emotional nature (1996). Mahajan and Madhurima (1995) say that punishment is not violence in its own self but when it involves sufficient injury to the child it is violence against a defenceless child. 25% of the roughly 10,000 reported rapes are of a girl child below the age of 16, and about one-fifth of those are below 10 (1990). Such statistics point towards the sexual vulnerability of a girl child in and around her home as well as the social climate which seems to encourage this violation. But sexual abuse of a young child also has dark psychological underpinnings since a pre-pubescent girl is not aware of her sexuality and understand sexual abuse as another form of violence or punishment towards her. The later realisation scars the mind forever. Furthermore, rape or sexual abuse within the family is often veiled and goes unreported due to the ‘sanctity’ of the family unit.

Another wave of subtle violence against the girlchild is manifested through unequal treatment within the household. This develops from the dominant ideology which relegates women and girls to submission and obligations, and their further devaluations and discrimination. The basic assumption in a patriarchy is that girls are physically and mentally weaker as also sexually vulnerable which leads to the construction of oppressive structures to confine women and girls’ mobility under the garb of protection of ‘purity’. There is evidence to show that girls and women are less privileged than their male family members in access to material resources (Basu, 1989; Gulati, 1978) which includes food and nutrition, medical care, and even clothes. Sunita Kishor observed “a critical manifestation” of the inequality of girls in the “under-allocation of medicine and food” for them (1995). In Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, it was a common practice for the females in the family to eat less and after the men ate, mostly leaving them with the bare minimum (Kumari et al, 1990). The familial ideology of the girl’s position as subordinate and the continual reinforcement of this position through such discriminations pose a dent on a female’s sense of entitlement and affirm her growing feelings of marginalisation, powerlessness and vulnerability.

The next phase explored in the article is a woman’s marital life and her position in the conjugal home. The conjugal home is the seat of injustice and violence against the daughter-in-law. In India, marriage is still seen as paramount for a girl especially as a means to control her sexuality, protecting the natal home’s own honour, and completing her safe transference to her ‘right’ home. The newly-wed girl is transferred to a completely new household with new relations and expectations which pose a considerable load on the woman. In Indian households, there is a strict sexual division of labour and an all-imposing age and gender hierarchy which often relegates the married women of the house to a subordinate position and these relations of the conjugal home are to supersede all natal relations. The wedding ceremonies and the system of dowry itself is a manifestation of the unequal relationship between a woman’s conjugal and natal homes, the former being superior. In the wedding ceremonies, women are passed between groups of men and families as if they are simple commodities. The burden of gift-giving, which is not restricted to a one-time dowry, often solely falls on the bride’s natal family and certain times hypergamous unions are preferred which establish a permanent asymmetry between the bride-giving and bride-taking families. The concept of personhood and identity of a woman are thus heavily impacted by the dominant family ideology which commodifies a woman and her sense of self is put to question in her conjugal home. However, this same woman may gain status is her conjugal home as she bears sons and ages, then taking on the role of mother-in-law, a role itself centred around the oppression of the new female entrants to the family. According to statistics, the demand for dowry and its ramifications is the primary cause of domestic violence. Karlekal notes that dissatisfaction over dowry payments and other prestation lead to the abuse of the wife not just by the husband but by other relatives as well. There often is a wide familial sanction and societal tolerance for wife abuse which often takes the form of physical beatings, inhuman labour, denial of food, verbal, and neglect of ailments. According to Delhi-based NGO Saheli, wife-beating is evident in all social classes and seems to be a reflection of the power dynamics between husband and wife. Sexual aggression against the wife might not be uncommon but in India marital rape is not considered rape at all and women often feel obliged to give the husband “what he needs” due to their socialisation which stresses on submissiveness and docility which makes a wife accepting of physical behaviour and even abuse from her husband.

The last phase explored in the life-cycle approach by the author is that of the ‘aging person within the home’. This is a life phase which lacks research to show the attitudes of the younger family members towards the elderly but a few studies suggest that a situation of dependency on the younger generation leads to neglect and maybe even ill-treatment and violence towards the elders, especially women due to their perceived subordinary position. The author’s personal observations led her to conclude that the general attitude of neglect comes because households are resistant and hesitant towards investing scarce resources on those who, it is felt, will have little to contribute to a family’s success and mobility. The elderly are subjected to informal violence in the form of scolding, nagging, neglect of their needs and feigned ignorance of their ailments, as observed by the women’s organisation-Karmika. A lot of enquiries listed inability to work, lack of finance and failing health as causes for ill-treatment. Veena Das opines that the shortage of research in this area is due to the over-emphasis on the married woman in the reproductive age which has led to the ignorance of other categories such as the elderly, the never-married and the disabled (Das, 1997). Furthermore, it has been established that of the poor in India, the widowed women are probably the most disadvantaged-socially and economically. Food discrimination, lack of proper healthcare, inadequate living space, and expectation of domestic work combined with a lack of property and assets makes the widow’s situation in a household even more precarious. The author also mentions in passing the oft-ignored question of a widow’s sexual vulnerability.

Through this analysis of violence across the lifespan of a woman, Malavika Karlekar illustrates the pervasive nature of violence in the toxic patriarchal set-up in the Indian society. The violence experienced has an overwhelming impact on the formation of a female’s identity and continuously forces her to submit and be docile-doubting her own worth and sense of personhood. This fundamental difference in identity formation and social positions between the sexes has its roots in the hierarchical socialisation processes, resource allocation within a household, general attitudes and external influences such as media, pornography and even the educational system. The continuous reinforcement of a women’s secondary status to men often causes the repression of self-expression and an internalisation of anger ad a low feeling of worth. However, the author celebrates the efforts of some women in resisting the established familial hierarchies in their own different ways. According to her, the development of alternative discourses through archival research, life stories and narrative techniques (e.g.- Butalia, 1993, 1997; Bhasin and Menon, 1994; Flavia Agnes, 1995) have made available the ‘truth’ of women’s experiences and pose a challenge to the established structures and norms of the society.